


With You I Could Summon the Gods and the Stars

by BooksAndBlankets



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, I just wanted closure, M/M, No Plot, Quentin and Eliot getting a proper goodbye, and a little bit of kissing, just talking, the tiniest bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29445258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksAndBlankets/pseuds/BooksAndBlankets
Summary: "I love you,” Eliot says, eyes wide and staring into Quentin’s, unable to stop the words rushing out. Quentin is here and warm and touching him, smelling exactly like Eliot remembers him smelling when he’s held him close as they’ve laid together at night staring up at the stars of a different world. Eliot can’t actually wrap his head around how that is even possible because Quentin is dead and he knows that, he’s been told that and he feels it in his bones, but now that he is sitting right next to him, looking at him, holding onto his hand like that, he’d rather die a thousand deaths than not tell Quentin how much he loves him. Not when he’s fucked up this part so badly before. He clenches his grip tighter around Quentin’s hand, and the surprise on Quentin’s face breaks Eliot’s heart. He draws a breath and continues."Or, the one in which Penny pulls on some strings so that Quentin and Eliot can get a proper goodbye around the campfire.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39





	With You I Could Summon the Gods and the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> I've completely fallen in love with the Magicians and with these characters over the course of a few months, and like everyone else I feel like these two desperately needed a different ending. If not a continued love story, then at least a proper goodbye, some real recognition and actual closure.
> 
> I've changed up a few small things just to fit the story better in my head, like for example how the gang starts singing before Quentin and Penny reach them. I just loved the idea of Quentin being lead towards the campfire by the voices of his friends. 
> 
> The title is a lyric from The Amazing Devil's beautiful song Battle Cries.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this little piece and that you're being kind to yourself! x

Quentin and Penny walk through the velvet night with their backs against Brakebills, following a glowing campfire and lingering music.

“ _Talking away._ ” Quentin looks puzzled at Penny as he hears Alice’s voice clear as day, but Penny only nods him onwards, that crooked smile warm on his face. “ _I don’t know what I’m to say._ ” Quentin draws in a breath he technically doesn’t need anymore, as he and Penny reach the campfire. Amidst the logs, being welcomed by orange tongues of fire, he can see pieces, fragments, of his life burning to cinders, and his friends all gathered. The air around them is heavy. Heavy with them and with their story, with all the things they’ve shared. 

Quentin feels tears burning at the corner of his eyes, accompanied by the feeling of there being more reason to smile than there has been in a very long time — maybe ever since evenings on a checkered quilt and ripe peaches in the moonlight, a different time that definitely was but also wasn’t. Quentin wipes at the corner of his eyes, smiling as he listens to Alice and to Julia and to all of them. They’re all going to be okay. They’ll be more than okay, they’ll be brilliant. 

His heart falls in his chest as he notices a pair of dark eyes missing. No Eliot. He feels a panic clawing its way up through his chest. The monster had gotten loose. The monster had kept Eliot. Quentin failed to save him. 

“S _o needless to say._ ” His panic comes to a halt and his heart all but stops as he turns towards the sound of Eliot’s voice behind him. It’s weak, but determined, jolted by the faltering steps he’s taking. “ _I’m odds and ends, but that’s okay. I’m stumbling away_.” 

He walks with a cane in one hand, leaning heavily towards Margo. She has a firm grip around his waist and his arm, and there is something so distinctly _Margo_ about the look in her eyes - tender and caring and ruthless at the same time. 

Eliot looks so tired, like he’s run to hell and back and told everyone off on the way, holding on for dear life, only to come home to an empty house. Jaw clenched in hurt and uncertainty, he sings.

“ _Slowly learning life is okay_.”

Quentin’s face crumples at that, and he turns to Penny.

“You’ve got to let me talk to him,” he pleads. Penny raises an eyebrow. 

“You know I can’t actually let you do that,” he says. “This is supposed to be goodbye enough, remember?”   
  
Quentin turns towards Eliot. He’s sitting next to Alice now. Margo has let go of him and moved to the other side of the fire, but the High King of Keeping her Shit Together still keeps a watchful eye on him. A light breeze ruffles the leaves of the trees surrounding the clearing, fueling the fire, turning their shadows long and drawn. Eliot, who’s always so impossibly _much,_ always there and fire and magic, suddenly looks so small in the glow from the fire. It looks like he is drowning in his dark coat, with his curls slicked back and the bags under his eyes heavy and dark. Quentin knows he’ll burst open if he’s not allowed to put a hand on Eliot’s cheek or feel his curls under his fingers one more time. 

“Please, Penny,” he says, looking at him with eyes that hold a lifetime lost, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on, or do any of the shit you need me to do, if I’m not allowed to actually say goodbye to him.” 

Penny looks from Quentin to Eliot, before his eyes fall on the rest of the ensemble around the fire. For a second his gaze lingers on Kady and on this other version of himself, flickering between the two of them, before coming back to rest at Eliot’s sunken frame. A second passes and then Penny lets out a huff that feels so out of place for the grey suit and put together Underworld-look, but so familiar for the Penny Quentin used to know. 

“All right,” he says. “I’m pretty sure you’d be haunting my sorry ass for ever if not, so, sure. I’ll try to get you guys a minute. But don’t go telling anyone else about it, ok?” 

It takes all Quentin has not to throw his arms around Penny’s neck. 

*

Time stops, suddenly and unexpectedly, and right in front of Eliot’s eyes. For a second, everyone around the fire looks like they’re moving through honey and the sound of their music in the air slows down. The leaves on the trees still mid-breeze, and the bright, glowing embers floating off of the fire, freeze in the air on their way towards the dark sky. 

Eliot’s heart rate speeds up, anxiety spiking, and he clenches his fingers around the handle of the cane, the metal hard in his hand as it digs into his palm. 

“What the,” he starts, head turning to seek out any imminent danger. He can move all right, so he’s not trapped inside himself or anything like that, meaning that most likely Margo and Alice and the others aren’t either. That’s something, at least, but that still explains nada about what’s actually going on. 

“Hi,” an uncertain voice suddenly says behind him, and Eliot freezes. His heart falls in his chest, heavy and ancient and filled with soot. He’s so tired. His head is so heavy. This cannot be real.

He whips around, tense as a coiled spring, when out of the shadows, like a dream or an apparition or the result of a really good illusion spell, Quentin puts a hand on his shoulder, before sitting down next to him on the log. His side brushes up against Eliot’s. 

Eliot holds his breath but can’t take his eyes off Quentin’s face. He cannot for the life of him school his expression into anything other than heartbreaking awe and confusion, but self-sabotaging attempts to play everything cool is the work of an Eliot left in the past, and so without even thinking about it, he leaves his confusion bare for Quentin to take. 

Quentin closes one hand around Eliot’s, while he puts the other hand in Eliot’s hair, gently following the swirl of a slicked back curl, before letting his hand wrap around the back of Eliot’s neck.

“Peaches and plums, motherfucker,” Quentin says, echoing a battle that feels like it had been fought decades ago, and Eliot’s face breaks open. Tears stream down his face and he lets them, as he moves his hand in Quentin’s grasp to properly hold onto Quentin’s hand. He holds on tight, like a lifeline, not daring to think about what would happen if he ever let go.

“Q,” he says, searching Quentin’s face for anything wrong or strange, or even vaguely demonic and out of place. He finds nothing but those laugh lines he knows all too well by now, the eyes he’s seen both grief and sunsets reflected in. “How can you…”

Quentin gives him a little smile, one side of his lips quirking up and his nose crinkling a bit. 

“Penny’s helping me out,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “He was kind of my welcoming committee in the Underworld, and he fixed it so I’d be able to come back and see you before I’ve got to go.” 

Eliot’s eyes are wide, his head grappling with the fact that Quentin is even there, that he’d managed to get back— that Quentin had wanted to see _him_ , but his face falls as Quentin’s words settle. 

“You have to go then, don’t you?” he says, bracing himself, suddenly very conscious of every hope and question he left out in the open on his face, feeling the cold metal of the cane in one hand contrast the warmth of Quentin’s grasp on his other. “You can’t stay?” 

Quentin smiles one of those sad smiles that Eliot always wants to wipe away with a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. He stops himself, terrified of breaking whatever kind of spell this is. 

“I’ve got to go, yeah,” Quentin replies. “But you know how it is,” he says, gesturing to everyone else frozen around them, “time’s not really all that fussy anyway, we should be good for a little while.” He looks over Eliot’s shoulder, holding his breath like he’s seeking confirmation, checking with Penny if his Underworld mojo is still okay with him staying put. He lets out a breath of relief, before giving Penny a little nod, turning back to Eliot. 

“I...” Quentin starts, but Eliot interrupts him. 

“I love you,” Eliot says, eyes wide and staring into Quentin’s, unable to stop the words rushing out. Quentin is here and warm and touching him, smelling exactly like Eliot remembers him smelling when he’s held him close as they’ve laid together at night staring up at the stars of a different world. Eliot can’t actually wrap his head around how that is even possible because Quentin is dead and he knows that, he’s been told that and he feels it in his bones, but now that he is sitting right next to him, looking at him, holding onto his hand like that, he’d rather die a thousand deaths than not tell Quentin how much he loves him. Not when he’s fucked up this part so badly before. He clenches his grip tighter around Quentin’s hand, and the surprise on Quentin’s face breaks Eliot’s heart. He draws a breath and continues. 

“I love you,” he repeats, “and I have for the last 50 years, apparently. My head’s not really getting how that’s possible, but my heart definitely tells me that it’s true.” He lets go of his cane and brushes Quentin’s hair gently away from his face, his fingers lingering on Quentin’s jaw. “We got to spend a life together,” he says, almost incredulously and Quentin’s look of surprise softens. “Fuck, we were a family,” Eliot continues, shaking his head as if he’s trying to come to terms with his own words and the weight they’re carrying. “We built something unique and strong and _ours._ ”

He looks at Quentin’s eyes, the brown swirling and twirling in his irises. “And when we got back and we remembered all that was beautiful and strong, and _you_ saw all those memories as pieces to rebuild, I ruined it by being a coward.” He lowers his gaze down to their hands, fingers tangled together. “I remembered how all-encompassing it felt, you loving me. It was the kind of love that doesn’t really ever end? The kind that lasts through years and arguments and ugly days and forgiving each other, and that kind of love has never been for me, you know? You saw me as so much more than just the drugs and the vices and the sex, you gave me so many years of your life, and when you wanted to try rebuilding that here in this timeline, I couldn’t for the life of me imagine how the fuck I’d ever deserve that kind of love a second time around. People don’t get chances like that and I got scared.” 

Quentin’s brows are knitted. It’s the same expression he wears when he’s exasperated or lost for words, when he knows there are important pieces left just out of reach, and he doesn’t know what else to do but to raise his own hand and put it on Eliot’s cheek to gather his reeling thoughts. Eliot lets out a heartbroken breath and leans into the touch with all he is.

“Hey,” Quentin says, catching and keeping Eliot’s gaze, “you deserve nothing less than a million years of love like that.” He looks at Eliot, and for a moment he can see the laugh lines to come, the gray hair to grow, the years to be lived. He strokes his cheek with his thumb and smiles cautiously. 

Tears are falling freely from Eliot’s eyes again, but he makes no sound. He lifts his hand and puts it atop of Quentin’s, silently begging him not to let go. 

“You showed me how beautiful life can be when you spend it with someone you love, and if I could, I’d spend all my days with you, all over again.”

Eliot's breath hitches. He’s kissed so many beautiful people in his life, taken them to bed and woken up so many mornings alone, stretching on his own in soft sheets, for the longest time thinking that was exactly what he wanted. He knows now that he’d give it all up in a heartbeat if it meant he got to spend the rest of his days, or even just another minute, with Quentin.

“You’re not a coward, El,” Quentin goes on. “You’ve made sacrifices I can’t begin to understand. You wake up every day and choose to live life exactly how you want it, and you deal with whatever the fuck life or the gods or fucking Fillory decides to throw at you.” Quentin’s eyes are bright and he talks like he always does, with his hands, gesticulating, wide movements to prove his point - the hand that’s still holding onto Eliot’s keeps holding on and just drags Eliot with him. Eliot smiles and moves closer to Quentin. He leans in, resting their foreheads together, before closing his eyes. For a blessed second they sit in silence, listening to each other breathing, coaxing out wisps of emotions they’d thought they’d hidden away. Eyes still closed and feeling Quentin’s quiet breath on his cheek, Eliot breaks the silence. 

“You made me strong and brave and kind,” he says, voice barely a whisper, tears still falling. He lets out a breath before uttering those words that scare him half to his own death. “And there’s no worth living in a world that doesn’t have you in it.” 

Quentin reaches his hand up to gently dry the tears from Eliot’s cheek.

“You’ll make every day worth it, Eliot,” he says, his voice making it clear that this is something he’s more sure of than most of the truths he’s gone day to day believing in. Eliot lets out a sob. 

“I love you,” he says again, pressing his forehead closer to Quentin‘s. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Quentin smiles again, lacing their fingers closer together. 

“I know,” he says, before moving his face to quietly catch Eliot’s lips with his own. He presses a soft kiss to the corner of Eliot’s mouth, and as Eliot lets out an almost inaudible gasp, Quentin replies: “I love you too.” 

Quentin puts a hand on Eliot’s neck and kisses him full on the lips after that. Eliot melts into the touch and kisses Quentin back with all the love and grief that’s filling every inch of him. Quentin keeps his hand on Eliot’s neck and the other in his hair, gently letting himself feel whatever part of Eliot he can reach, wanting nothing more than to make him feel safe and loved and cherished. 

Eliot breaks off the kiss, only to trail careful kisses down the side of Quentin’s face, keeping his hands on Quentin’s cheek and in his hair, before tucking his face into Quentin’s neck. He breaths in the scent of Quentin so close to him, that unmistakable scent of books and what can only be described as fresh grass. He lets out a breath. 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without you, Q,” he whispers into Quentin’s neck, and Quentin puts his arms around him, enveloping him, holding him tight. 

“You’ll figure it out, El,” Quentin replies. “Whatever you do from here on out, I‘m gonna be so fucking proud of you.” Eliot lets out another sob at that, and Quentin’s grip tightens even further.

They sit there in the dark next to the frozen fire, cherishing every stolen second.

*

In the flash of a second, the warmth of Quentin’s arms around him vanishes, and suddenly everyone around the fire starts moving, once again as through honey. The embers of the fire keep flickering upwards and the trees resume their rustling.

Eliot puts his arms around himself, feeling cold even though the open flame is almost nipping at him, and awfully lonely even though he’s surrounded by people. His breath catches in his throat and his heart skips another beat as he feels that familiar scent still lingering on his black coat. The smell of old books and fresh grass. 

He closes his eyes and turns his face to the sky. 

“Good bye, Q,” he thinks, hoping it’ll reach Quentin wherever it is, sending it on the back of the embers floating up towards the sky.


End file.
